Current evidence is that religion is flourishing in China. However, practical problems make statistical statements for the number of religious believers in China quite hazardous. The author cautiously examines the evidence that exists for each of the five, major, officially-recognized religious faiths in China.
This article, translated from the website Kuanye, reports on the opening of a church for the blind in the city of Shenyang, in China's northeastern Liaoning Province.
A pioneering pastor in Beijing talks to a reporter from the Christian Times about the importance of church membership as a means of ensuring that believers receive proper spiritual nurture. The goal of church growth is not simply more people attending the church, but more disciples. He also addresses the phenomenon of lateral movement, or believers moving from one church to another, often due to dissatisfaction with their former church. His own approach of letting go and encouraging one of his congregations to become independent may seem surprising, particularly to those who believe a pastor should keep a tight reign on his flock.
Going back as far as the Tang Dynasty, this article traces the advance of the gospel in the city of Beijing over the space of more than 1000 years. Today its influence can be seen through contributions made by Christians of previous generations in areas such as medicine, economics, education, and culture, and in the exponential growth of the church since 1949. As China's most important city, Beijing plays a central role in the continued expansion of the gospel both within China and beyond China's borders.
In recent years, churches in China have begun to send missionaries overseas. This article in the Christian Times is about missionaries to Laos, Pakistan, and Cambodia sharing about their experiences in a church in Anhui.
As Chinese churches, particularly those in the urban areas continue to grow and mature, leaders are increasingly focusing on where the church needs to go from here. This article, published in the Christian Times, is about Pastor Zhang of the Beijing Gospel Missionary Church, and his thoughts on the issues facing the Chinese Church in the near future.
In this post on the popular Christian site Voice in the Wilderness (kuanye), the writer addresses a fundamental theological question: What does it mean to believe in Jesus?
In the last post we featured an interview with Dr. Zhao Xiao, a prominent Beijing economist and outspoken Christian, conducted in 2008. This article, in the Gospel Times (January 2012), is a report on a talk that Zhao gave addressing the question of how China's future missionary sending movement will be supported.
An interview with economist Dr. Zhao Xiao.
The full title of this article is "How to Make the Church Chinese: Perspectives from the Religious, Academic, and Political Spheres" and is posted on the website of the China Christian Council/Three-Self Patriotic Movement (CCC/TSPM). Originally published in the official China Nationalities News, it examines the question of how Chinese the church is in China. While most Chinese Christians would likely agree that today's church is already Chinese both in character and leadership, many in the larger society have yet to acknowledge Christianity as genuinely a Chinese religion. The process of Sinicization, this writer argues, involves not only Christians themselves, but also China's intellectual and political elites.
Crossing the river by feeling the stones, a popular Chinese idiom, is a fitting way to describe Chinas emerging urban church. Its leaders have no older generation to look up to, and the opportunities and challenges they face are unprecedented in Chinas history. In this article published in the Christian Times, one pastor describes the dangers facing todays urban church leaders. He cautions them to be humble and teachable, as the decisions they make will affect an entire generation.
Last week the New York Review of Books blog published an interview of American-based Chinese pastor Yuan Zhi-ming conducted by journalist Ian Johnson. In the 1980's Yuan Zhi-ming was a documentary film-maker in China. Because of his involvement in the 1989 protest movement, he was forced to flee China, eventually ending up in the United States. He became a Christian in 1992, and started the China Soul for Christ Foundation, which produced the documentary The Cross: Jesus in China.